Xenophobia: their shame,
our shame
I
read in one of the dailies that some folks who had just been repatriated from
South Africa by the government, at some hefty cost it must be said, were ‘caught’
trying to sneak back to the (once-upon-a-time) rainbow nation. Apparently, so
incensed was some mob at Biwi that it wanted to mete out instant ‘justice’ to
these ingrates. Our reformed police intervened, thankfully. Since then, several
of these stories have popped up in our papers, attended rather bemusingly by acerbic
editorials denouncing these Malawians who have dared to even think of going
back to the land where they were so brutally terrorized. The anger is misplaced
I venture to say. What should incense us should not be the apparent idiocy of
these people, but rather the state of our nation. What is it about Malawi that
is so reeking that folks would rather put themselves in mortal danger elsewhere
than hang around here? The fact of the despair that drives some of the most
energetic of our people-who should be contributing in our economy and not
building up foreign ones-into unwelcoming and resentful slums thousands of
miles away is what should scandalize us. Not their jumping on free buses back
to the land of ‘necklaces.’ Xenophobia is much our shame as it is South Africa’s.
And
by the way, why are they being detained? True, their decision to quickly make
the U-turn and head back from where we had spent some considerable fortune to ‘save’
them was always bound to offend the sensitivities of some. But it’s not an
offence to get on a bus and travel to South Africa. Even if you happen to have
a shattered jaw from the unforgiving blow of a demented xenophobe. If there are
some who want to go back to South Africa, let no one stand in their way. This, by
the way, should make us rethink the whole repatriation thing. Were we really
repatriating folks who wanted to be back? Was this thing being forced on
people? Not that we should turn our back on compatriots stranded elsewhere. But
this experience should teach us something about circumspection. Maybe if we had been calmer and measured in
our response, we would have come to the conclusion that the number of people who
wanted out was not as high. We might as well have decided that our intervention
could have been more impactful if delivered right there in the camps in South
Africa. Maybe by trying to improve the apparently deplorable conditions there
for our people?
And
talking of camps, there still are camps in chilobwe/zingwangwa, chikwawa and
nsanje, no? A reminder of those devastating floods now months ago. We seem not to be in any hurry whatsoever to
ensure that these Malawians are more permanently resettled. It can’t be right. The fact that they met their fate here at the
hands of Mother Nature as opposed to them shanty townships in Zwelithini’s
kingdom at the hands of his rowdy impis
does not make their plight any less urgent.
What’s our nation’s most
pressing need?
Him
whom President Obama likes to refer to as the Baptist preacher once spoke of
the ‘fierce urgency of now’. The core of
the preacher’s rallying cry that late August day was that the equal treatment of the black man
was the most pressing issue that faced the American nation at the time and its
resolution could no longer be pushed down the menu of national priorities. I am
keen student of our nation’s policy documents, especially those of the macro/overarching
ilk. The MGDS for instance. And going through them, I often grapple with this
question ‘what is our nation’s most pressing need?’ What challenge have we
identified as commanding the fierce urgency of now, the resolution of which
cannot be postponed to the tenure of the next political administration? I ask
myself these questions because I sincerely wonder if we will be able to climb
out of this hole of despondency unless we ask ourselves that question…forget
about priorities within priorities. Am asking about THE priority…
